Hophead Hop Vodka from Anchor Brewing, Reviewed

As anyone who’s been following this column knows, I’m a fan of San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing Company. It became one the country’s first modern craft breweries after Fritz Maytag (of the prominent washing-machine-and-cheese family) bought it in 1967, when the brewery was only making its flagship Steam Beer, and not doing it well. Maytag turned things around and started making small batches of porters, ales, and (my favorite) Christmas brew. It’s not overstating the case to say that American beer would not be as good as it is in 2013 without Anchor leading the way.

In the early ’90s, Anchor decided to branch out into distilling, and set up a still in the basement of the brewery. This wasn’t a sure thing–beer making and liquor making involve different skills–but Anchor’s Old Potrero Whiskey and Junipero Gin are actually great spirits, and they were way ahead of the craft-distilling curve, too.

It’s taken Anchor 20 years to come up with another liquor, but it’s a good (if slightly weird) one: Hophead Hop Vodka. If a vodka is defined as being “without distinctive character, aroma, taste or color,” as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives likes to put it, then this Hop Vodka barely qualifies. It’s colorless, sure, but it smells like a big bucket full of ripe hops, like the pungent air of a brewery without that bready malt sweetness floating around. Even though it smells like a strong IPA, it tastes grassy, floral, and light, like a gin without the juniper (yes, I know that’s an oxymoron).

To confirm that it’s more in a category of its own than a traditional vodka, I asked
Adam Rapoport, our vodka-loving editor in chief, to take a sip. As expected, he was not into the grassy palate, and thought the base spirit was “too round.” Or, as I would put it, it just had too much character for his tastes.

Whether or not you personally like the Anchor beers and spirits, the company reliably does interesting, fun stuff with its products, and you get the sense that Anchor’s always doing exactly what it wants to be doing. Just the bottle shape and the label design on this Hop Vodka put it in a category of its own on the shelf, and it ultimately doesn’t matter if it’s a vodka, or a gin, or something in between. It just tastes good and, despite all its artisanal cred, costs only $30 for a 750mL bottle.